Frozen Time
by dutiesofcare
Summary: As the Doctor manages to unfreeze the frozen time, explosions from the war zone start to set off around him. He only didn't expect the person he longed to see the most to come through the smokes of fire. Set during Twice Upon A Time.


**A/N: Megan (Twelveslapels), thanks for letting me steal this idea from you.**

 **Just in case we all have our hopes crushed in the Christmas Special and twelveclara doesn't get the proper goodbye they deserve.**

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The Doctor watched as the flakes of snow began to fall above him once more, coloring his silver grey curls with white dots. They had done it, succeeded, unfrozen the frozen time. _He_ had saved the world once again, yet he felt like a failure to everybody, but to anybody more than himself.

He was alone. He had no idea to where everybody else had gone off; perhaps he'd scared them away – he had a habit of that. Especially when the yellow glow he absolutely tried to keep inside of him leaked from his limps. He couldn't blame them, he was on the edge of scaring himself away, too.

Explosions were starting to set off around him. Of course, he was still amidst a World War zone; he had saved the world only to have it destroyed again by its own habitants. However, he didn't have it in himself to move away. Unlike his surroundings, he appeared to be frozen still.

His eyes narrowed at the sight of something emerging between the burning flames of fire. Someone. They seemed lost, unsure of what was happening around them and not really caring for their safety. For a moment, he forgot all about his inner demons. He could save at least one more innocent person.

The Doctor hushed his legs throughout the meadow, feet heavy at each step as he tried to get past the snow that craved to swallow him in. A few more bombs set off around them and the snowflakes could no longer be told apart from the flares of coal.

At each of the exploding sounds, the person still a little ahead of him would jerk down, attempting to protect their head with the shield of their arms. They would stumble at their own feet in vain aims of escaping the enclosing fire, although the fire was starting to overcome them.

Regardless of not being acknowledged by the _woman_ , he grabbed her hand, startling her as he did. He didn't wait for the shock to wear off, pulling her quickly. However, the flames had already started to consume them, and the Doctor could no longer see the path he had come from.

"Come on," he pledged, bringing her close to his own body. He held his breath in his throat, guiding her through the smoke, frowning at how she never once was caused to cough by the fume. Still, he never let go of her.

The seconds passed like an eternity until they reached safe territory – or as far away from the ongoing explosions as it could be. The Doctor didn't exactly know how they both ended up on falling to ground, he only noticed it when the cold fallen snow embraced his body. He finally allowed the oxygen to enter his airway once more, almost choking at the first contact.

The woman remained perfectly still. The cold didn't seem to bother her, and her hair was falling above her face, obstructing his view of her appearance. Her chest lied flat and, for a moment, he thought that she was dead. But soon her voice echoed through the air, a whisper making its way through the howls of wind, "The smoke was getting in my eyes, I couldn't see where I was headed."

He nodded, eyes eyeing up. From the distance, they could still hear the reverberation from the bombs. "I'm glad I could lend you my eyes, then."

Thankfully, she allowed her head to lean sideways so her vision could get a glimpse of the man who had helped her. He turned his head slightly just in time to see her features suddenly change and her entire body to tense up, causing her to immediately turn away from him. _Perhaps she had seen the yellow glow escaping the palm of his hands._ "Ma'am? Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

He mimicked her movements by leaning on his elbows, although only watched as she tried to stand up and fell back to the floor, still facing away from him. "Yes—No, I'm fine."

He fought the urge to touch her arm in order to get her to look at him. "Are you sure? You're trembling. The shock might not have let you sense your own injuries."

She raised her hands in the air to take a proper glance at them, only then realizing they were indeed shaking. She closed her fists immediately to hide the tremors. "It's nothing. It must be the cold, I guess."

Hesitantly, he dragged his legs across the snow until the distance between them decreased, only if the slightest bit. "I would hate to have saved you from the fire only then to have you die from the cold. Here, take my coat."

He was about to free his second arm when her torso bent away from him. "No. I don't really feel cold. You keep it, before _you_ freeze to death."

He went on with his actions nonetheless. "The perks of having a low temperature body is that I can't freeze to death so easily. You're human, however, any chilly breeze on your way might send you into hypothermia. Besides, you're pretty thin and petite, you don't have a lot of body mass to shield you from the weather. Take it."

"The cold weather really can't get to me," she explained, "You'd be surprised."

The Doctor stood out his arm to her, holding the coat at the tip of his fingers. "Surprised or not, I don't see how a little warmth would do any harm."

Reluctantly, she retrieved it. Her profile was still hidden by her hair, showing nothing more than the edge of her jawline, but she didn't hide it all back again. She didn't bother herself to properly wear the piece of clothing, instead just wrapped it around her shoulders. "Thanks, I guess."

"You're welcome," he spoke monotonously, resting his hands against his tights. "Why can't you look at me?"

She shook her head desperately, almost scared that he would make her look his way. Her voice betrayed her composure, "I can't bear to look at you. I'm sorry."

"Come on, I know I'm not that handsome, but my looks won't scare you off, I'm sure," he amusingly said, being caught by surprise when he managed to draw a smile from her lips.

"Don't worry, you're not that bad," she stated shyly.

He chuckled, "How would you know? You still haven't given me pleasure of your stare."

Her grimace disappeared instantaneously, and she took a long breath she apparently didn't need. "Perhaps I'll be the one to scare you off."

"Nah, I doubt that," he gesticulated with his hands. "I'm not scared off that easily. And I do tend to find every single creature of this universe remarkably beautiful. You won't be an exception; unless you're a Dalek. Are you a Dalek?"

She scoffed slightly, and he suddenly felt the realization that his only purpose in life was to make her smile. "I'm not a Dalek. I won't exterminate you, I promise."

His forehead turned into a frown as he tilted his head, his previous amusement surely vanished. "How do you know what a Dalek is?"

She clearly shivered at the shift of his voice. "I… I should go."

"Go where?" he prompted, annoyedly, "We're in the middle of a War Zone. As we stand here, there's a great risk of a bomb falling above our heads, but are you willingly to walk through the fire? Or the opposite way, where the enemy soldiers could very much grab you and make you their hostage? Kill you, if worse?"

"You make it sound like we don't stand a chance," she complained, almost inaudible. "My destination is very safe, I'll have you know."

"Unless you're going back to your Dalek friends, I'm not entirely sure there's anywhere safe," he tried to be funny, but her body's rigidness alarmed him he hadn't been successful. He cleared his throat, "Not to _anyone._ Not until the Great War is over."

She brought her knees close to her chest, burying her chin in the gap between them. "The Great War feels like nothing compared to the war going on inside of _ourselves_."

Carefully, he approached her even farther, to the point his warm breath tickled the back of her neck. "Is that why you're still here? Waiting for the Great War to take you, inevitably ending the war within yourself?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," she sighed tiredly. "I'm afraid I already know my ending, but I can't bring myself to face it. Not until I've put all my affairs to order."

The Doctor placed his hand on the back of her shoulder, trying to comfort her the best he could. He respected her enough not to turn her torso around until they came eye to eye. "What's stopping you?"

At last, like she had already given up the fight inside of her, she turned to face him; her eyes wide with sorrow, her lips curving into a saddened smile that matched the sadness of her soul. "Memories."

At the immediate sight of her, the Doctor's hearts surely skipped a beat inside of his chest. His face suddenly became pale as if he had seen a ghost – because he had. " _Clara_."

His call for her was weak, almost inexistent, she could only hear him because of their proximity. And at the sound of _her name_ , Clara struggled to stop herself from shivering. From running away before the entire universe crumbled underneath them. Her lips couldn't mimic all the words going through her mind. She was frozen.

Desperately and yearning for the physical contact that so long ago had been stolen from him, he brought his hand to her jawline. Cupping it, allowing the cold of her cheeks to bring warmth into him again. He repeated the only word that he still knew how to say, "Clara."

Clara rested her head against his palm, unable to stop the teardrops from descending her reddened faces. She was at complete mercy of his touch. "You… You're not supposed to know my face."

Struggling to keep his breathing pattern steady, he brought his head to her. Forehead touching forehead; their eyes so close they could see into one another's soul. "Clara. My Clara. You've come back to me."

There was the setting off from another bomb, so close the ground trembled beneath them. But they didn't dare to move, too consumed on the presence of the other to sense anything happening around them. Frozen within unfrozen time. "The stars guided me back to you."

His _need_ to be with her was so strong he could no longer control the regeneration light that escaped his limbs and heated the soft human skin they touched. Without either of their knowledge, she was standing between his knees, allowing herself to be one and only with him. "The memory of you was the only thing that kept me from regenerating, Clara. I _had_ to find you."

And yet another bomb. Narrowing them in. "And now you have. Now you can go in peace, Doctor. We've both put our affairs to order."

Weren't his head attached to her, she wouldn't have felt the shift of it. "I don't want to go. If I go, you'll go back to Gallifrey and face the raven."

"It's alright," she cried, running her delicate fingers through his silver sea of curls, "I've already found you. I got to see you one last time. We all face the raven in the end, Doctor."

"I'm facing mine now," he confessed in a whisper, because his words belonged to her and her only. "I'm scared. I can't do it without you."

"Yes, you can," her scolding was harsh and yet gentle. "You've already come this far without me. What's stopping you from coming any further?"

" _You_ ," he said, "I remembered what it's like having you back by my side. And there's nothing worse than finding what's been missing from us only to have it yanked from me again."

Clara could no longer tell whether the tears floating her skin were coming from her or from him; or from them. "You'll have to learn, then. _Our time_ has run out. The yellow light you're so desperately trying to hold inside of you is more than proof to it."

Another explosion. And another. "I'm sorry we had to end like this. Amidst a war zone, with no proper chance to say goodbye."

She brought herself even closer to him, were that possible. "I'm not."

In a matter of milliseconds, their lips crashed against one another and they phased out from existence. The power of the explosions around them were nothing compared to the power of the emotions they had bottled inside of them ever since their last encounter. For that precise moment, nothing else mattered. Nothing but their devotion to one another.

Their kiss lasted forever but ended so soon.

"Goodbye, Doctor," Clara was the one to pull away, knowing she had to be the strong one. It would hurt too much if she weren't. And pulling apart from him was the most pain she had ever felt for the last hundreds of years.

As she tore away from him, the Doctor felt her to be taking his life away, too. He was left wordlessly as she broke through the same explosions she had come from – or were they new ones? He didn't recall them to be this near.

And then he understood. The explosions around him were analogizing what was bound to happen to him.

The regenerating fire would take over him and he would explode into a face he'd never seen himself be.

Leaving behind all that was left of him.

All that was left of her.

He didn't even notice her leaving his coat behind, as a silent request _she knew_ he wouldn't fight.

To be a Doctor.

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 **A/N: Did I end writing this in tears, of course I did. Any feedback here or on twitter (dutiesofcare) is, regardless, much appreciated :)**


End file.
